Most Cities Slow to Meet State Law on Toxic Chemicals

Fewer than half of Orange County’s 26 cities have workable systems for finding out what hazardous materials are stored in a local business if a fire breaks out, local fire officials said Wednesday.

And in those cities that have toxic-chemical information on file, it can take anywhere from five minutes to an hour to find out what actually is burning, even though more than a year has passed since the Legislature mandated adoption of some sort of hazardous materials inventory program by every city to protect safety officers and the public in the event of fire.

The need for such inventories was underscored last Sunday, when a toxic fire broke out at a Newport Beach metal-finishing firm at 829 Production Place. When firefighters arrived at the blazing building, they had a three-page list of the chemicals stored inside.

Although Newport Beach has not yet adopted an official hazardous materials disclosure program, authorities have been informally gathering information on hazardous materials during fire inspections.

“It (the list) was very helpful,” Newport Beach Fire Chief Jim Reed said the day after the fire was extinguished. “We knew what we were up against and what precautions to take for our men on the fire, and in considering that when you pour a lot of water on a fire, it can put a lot of corrosives into the bay.”

Newport Beach was lucky last Sunday that its firefighters had a list of the 140 chemicals stored at Hixson Metal Finishing because there is no master list of the 300 companies in Newport Beach from which information has been informally gathered.

Anaheim was not so lucky nearly two years ago when the Larry Fricker Co., an agricultural pesticides and fertilizer warehouse, was torched by an arsonist, causing a three-day blaze and releasing 80 different chemicals into the air.

Without an inventory of those chemicals, firefighters had a tough time battling the June 22, 1985, blaze. About 20 residents--including four firefighters--were treated and released for minor injuries sustained while breathing the toxic vapors or making contact with the chemicals. Many others, however, later complained of boils, rashes and other ailments.

Five months later, the Legislature passed AB 2185, which mandates that all cities adopt their own disclosure programs or turn the task over to county officials. It did not, however, contain any enforceable deadline for completion of that process.

As of late February, 12 cities had requested that the Orange County Fire Department administer their disclosure programs, nine had passed ordinances outlining programs for their own cities, four had not yet voted on how to manage mandatory disclosure, and one city passed an ordinance and is in the process of repealing it, according to local hazardous materials experts.

Most city officials surveyed by The Times said they plan to place computer terminals on fire engines that will be capable of instantly providing information on chemicals stored by local businesses. But in reality, most of this information--if it has been collected at all--now sits in manila folders in fire officials’ file cabinets.

The Westminster City Council voted in December, 1985, to administer its own program, and local fire officials have complete lists on the hazardous materials kept at an estimated 230 firms in the city.

“Where we’re hung up is that our department does not have a computer at all, so we’re dealing with a manual system that is slow and does not allow us to access data that’s stored on hand,” said Allan White, a Westminster Fire Department battalion chief. “At present, it could probably take 30 minutes or more (to get the list of chemicals on any business). What happens is, you have to get someone back to where the information is stored and pull the address file with the list.”

Sometimes, White said, firefighters do not have the time for that.

“If there is a highly reactive or toxic chemical, the downwind areas need to be evacuated early in the fire,” he said.

The county and the cities of La Habra and Orange were the local pioneers in developing reporting programs. The county adopted its own hazardous materials disclosure ordinance in October, 1985. La Habra adopted its ordinance in November, 1985. Orange had taken action even earlier, in September of the same year.

As a result, their programs work well now and are closer to completion. Here is a city-by-city look at just how advanced local disclosure programs are:

- Cypress, Irvine, La Palma, Los Alamitos, Placentia, San Juan Capistrano, Seal Beach, Tustin, Villa Park, Yorba Linda and unincorporated areas are under the jurisdiction of the Orange County Fire Department. For the average business, it takes safety officials about five minutes to find out what chemicals are in the buildings of any company that has filed a disclosure form, said Sylvan Hersh, the county Fire Department’s hazardous materials program manager.

Hersh said an estimated 1,200 to 1,300 businesses within those cities use or store large enough quantities of hazardous materials over the course of a year--500 pounds of a solid, 55 gallons of a liquid or 200 cubic feet of a compressed gas, according to the county’s ordinance--to file disclosure forms.

At present, firefighters know before they reach an industrial building whether there are hazardous materials inside, said county Fire Capt. David Cochrane. It is possible to get the full list of chemicals from a dispatcher by radio or telephone, a process that would take about five minutes in most cases.

- Laguna Beach and Costa Mesa recently decided to have the county administer their disclosure programs, Hersh said, and the county is still gathering toxics information from businesses in those cities. As a result, there is no official disclosure program there.

- City councils in Buena Park, Fullerton, Garden Grove and Newport Beach have yet to decide whether their own fire departments or the county will administer their programs, said Michael Tamiyasu, chairman of the Orange County Fire Prevention Officers Hazardous Materials Committee. As a result, there is no formal disclosure process in these cities.

- The Anaheim Fire Department administers its city’s disclosure program, said Marc Younis, hazardous materials specialist. Anaheim firefighters know immediately whether toxic chemicals are involved in an industrial fire, Younis said, but it currently could take between a half hour and an hour to get a full list of the hazardous materials stored in any business.

However, by some time next week, it will take only minutes to get the same information, Younis said. By then, dispatchers will have the training and authorization to get lists of toxics from the city’s computers and will be able to read that information by radio or telephone to firefighters at the scene of a blaze.

- In Brea, the city Fire Department is administering the disclosure program, but that decision was made last November, and questionnaires have not been mailed out to local businesses. There is some hazardous materials information available through the existing permit process, but it is in manila folders and the time required to get it to firefighters battling a blaze could range from a few minutes to half an hour. “We haven’t solved the accessibility problem yet,” said Battalion Chief Bud Moody, the city’s fire marshal.

- The Fountain Valley Fire Department is administering its own program, but it is in its infancy, said Fire Marshal Lynne Michaelis. Questionnaires with disclosure information are coming back from local businesses, she said, and by April hazardous material information should be accessible within five minutes. Now, however, “that information is not available,” Michaelis said.

- Huntington Beach has its own program and has entered full disclosure information into a computer database, said Tamiyasu, who is also the city’s hazardous materials disclosure coordinator. Computer printouts of the forms will soon be sent to every engine company, but Tamiyasu refused to say how long it now takes to get that information to officers fighting a blaze. “It’s a touchy question,” he said.

“The problem we’re facing now is getting the computerized information from the database in the administration office out to a responding engine,” he said. “No one is set up for that yet.”

- La Habra, which adopted its own disclosure ordinance the same month the state law was passed, has one of the more advanced programs in Orange County. Many businesses already have lockboxes on their plants with full disclosure information and floor plans enclosed for firefighters. If a company has no lockbox and stores great amounts of harmful chemicals, lists of those materials are kept in the battalion chief’s car, Fire Chief Ben Wilkins said. If a fire does involve hazardous chemicals, firefighters “know about it before they get there,” Wilkins said.

- Orange adopted its own ordinance before the state law was passed, and nearly all of the disclosure information is computerized. It takes only five to 10 minutes to get complete information about most businesses, said Anne Thibert, the city’s hazardous materials specialist. For those businesses not yet entered in the city’s computers, it could take up to 15 to 20 minutes to get that information, Thibert said.

- The San Clemente City Council only recently adopted a disclosure ordinance and has not yet implemented it, said Ed Harrod, deputy fire marshal. “We’re just now getting all the paper work together,” Harrod said, but the issue does not have a great effect on the community. “We have very few businesses that have the chemicals,” he said. “We don’t have any industrial base at all.”

- The Santa Ana Fire Department hopes to mail out its disclosure questionnaires by March 10, said Capt. Bob Runnells, and currently only has permit and fire inspection information on businesses that store or use hazardous chemicals. “Now we take precautions for what we assume to be the most hazardous thing in the building,” Runnells said.

- The Stanton City Council “passed the ordinance, and when our new city manager came on board he indicated that he did not want us to assume that responsibility,” said Fire Marshal Warren Gillette. The city is in the process of repealing its disclosure ordinance and plans to have the county take care of its hazardous materials program, he said.

City Manager James Buell could not be reached for comment, and Gillette said he did not know the reason for the repeal. There are no disclosure files now. “We have a fair idea of where our problem areas are through our normal fire permit process, but that’s just about it,” Gillette said.

- The Westminster Fire Department is administering its city’s disclosure program, Battalion Chief White said, and questionnaires have been mailed to the city’s businesses. At the moment, however, “there is no way to know immediately” what hazardous chemicals are stored in any plant, he said.